Inside China: J-31 stealth jet takes to the skies

Mainly because of the policy, countless forced abortions have been performed at a great emotional and moral cost to millions of Chinese families. All-powerful family planning officials in China are among the most hated in the society.

With a population that is increasingly aging, China’s elderly care system faces unprecedented crises as young married couples from one-child families must take care of four older parents, adding a tremendous burden to the most productive demographic portion of the nation.

Sex discrimination has skyrocketed in China in the past several decades in large part because of the population control policy. Many families prefer sons to daughters.

Prenatal ultrasound sex identification, gender-selected abortion, massive abandonment of infant daughters, and the disproportionate number of girls in orphanages and adoption agencies have been alarming.

Virtually all children adopted overseas from Chinese parents are girls. China also possesses the dubious honor of having the world’s highest imbalance of male-to-female sex ratio at birth with 117 boys to 100 girls.

In the military, close to 90 percent of Chinese troops in all service branches come from one-child families, which is producing a tremendous negative impact on recruiting, training, morale and benefits.

The one-child policy is among the leading reasons why China suffers from a hemorrhaging brain drain. Many among the educated and the financially well-off in China are trying their best to leave the country so they can have the freedom to have more than one child.

The brutal enforcement of the policy during four decades of unrelenting and harsh party demands also has severely damaged China’s international stance. It is another major category of rights abuses in China’s abysmally poor human rights record.

The report, though not fully available to the Chinese public, gathered strong support and cheers among China’s estimated 500 million Internet users.

Senior Chinese leaders have made no official comment.

• Miles Yu’s column appears Thursdays. He can be reached at mmileyu@gmail.com.